On 6th March Mr. Andrey Belyaninov, Head of the Russian FCS, and Heads of the Russian FCS Departments held a meeting with the representatives of the leading Russian and foreign commodity producers, unified in “Rusbrand” Partnership.

“We perceive you as our allies and co-thinkers”, - remarked Mr. A Belyaninov, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between customs officers and business representatives, especially in regard of those companies, whose work is transparent.

The number of questions, raised during the meeting, touched upon the issues of electronic document flow and interdepartmental collaboration. According to the opinion of the representatives of the Russian FCS Departments, changing of the range of the International Legislation requirements, as well as the readiness of other departments for paperless information changeover are necessary to solve these questions.

A lot of questions touched upon the Intellectual Property Protection. According to the common opinion of the meeting participants, joint efforts in this direction with application of non-tariff measures will allow to preserve the competitive position of the Russian producers.

Concluding the meeting, Mr. Andrey Belyaninov encouraged the producers for closer collaboration and expressed his hope that further meetings will be as productive as this one.

Mr. David Jakobashvili, Chairman of Board of Directors of Non-Profit Partnership “Rusbrand”, highly assessed the level of proficiency of the dialogue: “We’re grateful for the Customs representatives for their open and constructive approach to solve the emerging business issues. Over a number of years, we have been successfully cooperating with the Russian FCS for counterfeit struggle. I’m sure that after our today’s meeting, the field of our collaboration will be significantly enlarged”.